Observation/Reflection #5 - How Do We Stop This Thing?
Observe how and when your teacher closes his or her lessons and/or activities. How does he or she end each class period? Is there a set routine? If so, describe it. Pay special attention to when you teacher begins to end the class. Does he or she return to the purpose or main idea of the lesson? Does he or she "set up" the homework or the next day's activity? Is the teacher still teaching when the bell rings or are students already poised to leave? Is there some "dead time" at the end of the class period? If so, how much? How do students react to your teacher's closing strategies? Remember that these questions are a guide and that you don't have to answer each one. Be sure you reflect on your observations and describe how you will try to end your classes. What supports for these ideas might you include in your lesson plans?
Observations:
Today was a lesson in trying new ideas and modifying them a little each practice. At Gaudet Middle School my CT was trying, for the first time, a different approach to teaching temperature and phase changes. When I arrived the students were in their co-curricular class so Mrs. Howell had asked for my help in presenting a new design to the class that involved heating ice in a beaker on a hot plate and recording temperature and other observations. We made an outline for the lab and came up with a focus question, which was, " How does heat affect the temperature and state of matter?" Mrs. Howell has been formatting her labs in a way that she calls "POE" which stands for Prediction, Observations, Explanation. When the students arrived the lab did not work out exactly as planned, but it became better each class period.The first class had only about 20 minutes to complete the lab after they had gone over the warm-up activity and homework. The way the lab worked was that each group monitored changes in the H20 for five minutes then the next group took over. This part went smoothly, but it would have been better if they had more time because the last group had to stay a minute after to record data. Mrs. Howell give one night a week off for homework and this happened to be the night so the students didn't have anything to put in the planners, but Mrs. Howell usually makes time for that. Today was atypical of how Mrs. Howell runs the class, but it worked out fine in the end. Usually there are a few minutes to spare and Mrs. Howell does a quick run through of why the class did what they did and what to remember from it, but today was a learning experience for both of us, and there wasn't much to wrap up except explain that they would be compiling class results and graphing them during the next class.
Reflections:
Based on the experience today I think I would have to continually state the purpose of each lesson, otherwise I would forget to mention it at the end and the kids would probably forget, too. I say this because before class Mrs. Howell and I were preparing how to present the lab and it was difficult to put into words so that the students would understand what they were doing and why. Once we had the idea or the focus question it was easier for us to explain the rest of the lab, but when we unleashed it onto the kids I'm not so sure they kept the focus question in mind to connect all the activities. What I mean is that the warm-up activity, the density homework, the Bill Nye video and the heating water lab were all connected, but since time didn't allow us to fit the explanation in at the end of class I am not sure all students understood this. Mrs. Howell was aware of this too, and she said that it was alright because she would go over it again on Monday and reconnect ideas that may have been lost over the weekend. This class may not have been a good example of proper closing strategies, but I think Mrs. Howell anticipated this might happen since the kids knew from the beginning of class that they didn't have any homework. Therefore, they took this activity as something fun to do while watching the Bill Nye video, which was also rather entertaining. I also think that assigning each group a set of times to monitor the ice heating made it more purposeful because each group was responsible for information that the entire class would eventually need, and I noticed that students were very attentive to the physical changes and marking the temperature change exactly to the minute using stop watches (they like those). Going back to how I would end my classes, I would try to state and restate the purpose of each lesson so that I know why I'm teaching it and more importantly so the kids know why they are learning it. At the end of class I want to have instilled this in the students so they can reflect on what they have done and give me feedback on what they felt they have learned. Even though I hope to achieve this each class I can recognize that time and the need to finish activities may not always allow this. I fear more at having dead time at the end of class because then the students' just want to leave and I feel like it's wasted time. I would rather take up a whole class and and have a unfinished activity than finish an activity and have a class bored and waiting for something to do. Something that I though of before was to do a "one, two, punch" which is an idea I think I learned about in EDC 400. Anyways, at the end of class each student writes on a notecard, one question they have about the lesson, two things they learned today, and an idea of how this might connect to something else they have learned in this class or another. This would be like their ticket out the door and I ould read them and address any concerns next class.
Class Topic: Science Grade: 7 Observed by: Beth Copeley
Observation/Reflection #5 - How Do We Stop This Thing?
Observe how and when your teacher closes his or her lessons and/or activities. How does he or she end each class period? Is there a set routine? If so, describe it. Pay special attention to when you teacher begins to end the class. Does he or she return to the purpose or main idea of the lesson? Does he or she "set up" the homework or the next day's activity? Is the teacher still teaching when the bell rings or are students already poised to leave? Is there some "dead time" at the end of the class period? If so, how much? How do students react to your teacher's closing strategies? Remember that these questions are a guide and that you don't have to answer each one. Be sure you reflect on your observations and describe how you will try to end your classes. What supports for these ideas might you include in your lesson plans?Observations:
Today was a lesson in trying new ideas and modifying them a little each practice. At Gaudet Middle School my CT was trying, for the first time, a different approach to teaching temperature and phase changes. When I arrived the students were in their co-curricular class so Mrs. Howell had asked for my help in presenting a new design to the class that involved heating ice in a beaker on a hot plate and recording temperature and other observations. We made an outline for the lab and came up with a focus question, which was, " How does heat affect the temperature and state of matter?" Mrs. Howell has been formatting her labs in a way that she calls "POE" which stands for Prediction, Observations, Explanation. When the students arrived the lab did not work out exactly as planned, but it became better each class period.The first class had only about 20 minutes to complete the lab after they had gone over the warm-up activity and homework. The way the lab worked was that each group monitored changes in the H20 for five minutes then the next group took over. This part went smoothly, but it would have been better if they had more time because the last group had to stay a minute after to record data. Mrs. Howell give one night a week off for homework and this happened to be the night so the students didn't have anything to put in the planners, but Mrs. Howell usually makes time for that. Today was atypical of how Mrs. Howell runs the class, but it worked out fine in the end. Usually there are a few minutes to spare and Mrs. Howell does a quick run through of why the class did what they did and what to remember from it, but today was a learning experience for both of us, and there wasn't much to wrap up except explain that they would be compiling class results and graphing them during the next class.Reflections:
Based on the experience today I think I would have to continually state the purpose of each lesson, otherwise I would forget to mention it at the end and the kids would probably forget, too. I say this because before class Mrs. Howell and I were preparing how to present the lab and it was difficult to put into words so that the students would understand what they were doing and why. Once we had the idea or the focus question it was easier for us to explain the rest of the lab, but when we unleashed it onto the kids I'm not so sure they kept the focus question in mind to connect all the activities. What I mean is that the warm-up activity, the density homework, the Bill Nye video and the heating water lab were all connected, but since time didn't allow us to fit the explanation in at the end of class I am not sure all students understood this. Mrs. Howell was aware of this too, and she said that it was alright because she would go over it again on Monday and reconnect ideas that may have been lost over the weekend. This class may not have been a good example of proper closing strategies, but I think Mrs. Howell anticipated this might happen since the kids knew from the beginning of class that they didn't have any homework. Therefore, they took this activity as something fun to do while watching the Bill Nye video, which was also rather entertaining. I also think that assigning each group a set of times to monitor the ice heating made it more purposeful because each group was responsible for information that the entire class would eventually need, and I noticed that students were very attentive to the physical changes and marking the temperature change exactly to the minute using stop watches (they like those). Going back to how I would end my classes, I would try to state and restate the purpose of each lesson so that I know why I'm teaching it and more importantly so the kids know why they are learning it. At the end of class I want to have instilled this in the students so they can reflect on what they have done and give me feedback on what they felt they have learned. Even though I hope to achieve this each class I can recognize that time and the need to finish activities may not always allow this. I fear more at having dead time at the end of class because then the students' just want to leave and I feel like it's wasted time. I would rather take up a whole class and and have a unfinished activity than finish an activity and have a class bored and waiting for something to do. Something that I though of before was to do a "one, two, punch" which is an idea I think I learned about in EDC 400. Anyways, at the end of class each student writes on a notecard, one question they have about the lesson, two things they learned today, and an idea of how this might connect to something else they have learned in this class or another. This would be like their ticket out the door and I ould read them and address any concerns next class.Class Topic: Science
Grade: 7
Observed by: Beth Copeley